I love my parents. I'm 40 years old and they're in their late 60s & early 70s.

Well, love might be an over-used, vague word.

I like my parents. I enjoy hanging out with them overall. We make each other laugh, usually.

However, with them being 1st generation Korean-Americans plus devout Christians, they have very, very conservative family-centric values. It's an obsession, a slave-like mentality.

But I've been there the ringer before. A handful of years ago I was married and I failed. Luckily I didn't have any kids and there was hardly any financial fallout. (Note: If you're going to get a divorce, be broke.)

Yet my parents won't give up.

So last weekend the three of us are having lunch at my apartment. Table full of Korean food. My Mom, with a cheeky smile, tells me to check my phone. She's sent me photos of a Korean woman, slim, nice-looking but clearly post-wall. Mom goes on an unsolicited rant on who this woman is, why she's single at 40, what she does for a living, how I should meet her, blah blah blah.

(Note: Korean-style set-up dates are purely for marriage only. Any sort of dating without marriage in mind is looked down up and I've been 0-for-whatever in these rice-pressure-cooker boring-ass dates over dinner which I have to pay.)

I put my chopsticks down and look dead in the eyes of the one who brought me to this world.

I married and failed. That failure almost killed me.

I will never marry again and I am at peace. My cup overflows, as the Bible says.

Several times since the divorce I've told you.

I will never marry again and I am at peace.

I'd be happy if you found peace as well.

But that's up to you. I'm here for you until it's your time to go.

I went into detail how eating lunch with them and hanging out with them is surreal at times. Why? Because I thought for sure I'd kill myself when my marriage failed. I had failed my parents in the worst way possible and I couldn't stand myself. That's why it's weird just chilling with them sometimes, even now.

Marriage is cancer to me; I survived it once, I'm not going to do it again. Why do my parents keep suggesting marriage to me like it's a fun Netflix series?

It's clear. They're not listening to me because they can't. They're plugged in and they don't want to see the truth. They enjoy being slaves. No matter how strongly I share with them, it doesn't matter.

Let them be.

I'm at peace.